Dancing on a Dead Blogger's Comment Box
You all know, by now, that the Vice President is mourning his recently-dead son. Ugandans are generally a very vicious bunch, of course, and they took this most-inconsolable moment in a father's life to spew forth lots of noise about politics. All this especially after the Vice President said he had wanted this son to succeed him after he is gone. Perhaps we find it hard to feel sorry for politicians (because, of course, we think we are so much more justified and righteous than those corrupt lying bastards, of course, those vile and shameless tax collectors—publicans!—and immoral vermin that are our politicians). Perhaps we don't yet know what it is to inter your own children; we still live in the ideal that what cometh after goeth after also. The shock of how quickly plans extending into the far future can be undone by a night-time phone call—“Your son (sob), hurry up (sob), to the hospital (sob), he has had an accident (sob), I think he won't survive (sob).”—and you know before you put the phone down that courage just failed your informant: you son is already dead, forever dead, and the plans you had that are 26 years old are now void and dead also. Sob. We don't know these things, most of us, and so we make light of this tragedy. We even see comedy in it, sometimes.
But I wonder what you, dear bloggers, would do if you found that the deceased we have been chuckling about was one of us?
I'm just from Zack's Utopia, and I've found out that Bryan Bukenya was also a blogger, one of us. Here is his weblog. He was blogging long before the huge majority of us started blogging. (He also stopped before most of us started.) But if you assume that he was just as lively a person on the day before he died as he was in his last blog post, you start to see the fragility of life.
His last post is a call of encouragement to his father who was (unfairly, I maintain, or at least disproportionately) being targetted for relentless, selfish, self-righteous Phariseeist criticism from our couch politicians. (Most people would have a crumbling country five seconds after being handed the Vice Presidency. Most people think that governing is easy and can be done by everyone - one of the bigger lies of democracy. Most people, also, are foolish. Connect the dots.)
Anyway, now imagine that Bryan wants to comment on our weblogs and he can't. Perhaps he wants to say something in this comments section.
Whatever, anyway. So, we had the opportunity to honour a fallen blogger, and we didn't do it. Since we will all die some time, there are many more chances to correct this grave mistake.
And when you die, I hope it won't be before your parents. That grief has no comparison, and Heaven forfend that we should ever—under any pretext—make light of it.
Anyway, when you die, remember that I'll at least pay you respects as a fallen blogger, one of us. Even as the rest of them go bananas. :o) (Remember that both you and I make many suicide attempts—willingly place ourselves in escapable positions where the probability of dying in the next ten minutes is very high—every time we sit on a boda-boda. This is before the boda-boda starts to move at all. You and I are closer to death, in fact, than he was. As the frogs say, La vie est courte.)
But I wonder what you, dear bloggers, would do if you found that the deceased we have been chuckling about was one of us?
I'm just from Zack's Utopia, and I've found out that Bryan Bukenya was also a blogger, one of us. Here is his weblog. He was blogging long before the huge majority of us started blogging. (He also stopped before most of us started.) But if you assume that he was just as lively a person on the day before he died as he was in his last blog post, you start to see the fragility of life.
His last post is a call of encouragement to his father who was (unfairly, I maintain, or at least disproportionately) being targetted for relentless, selfish, self-righteous Phariseeist criticism from our couch politicians. (Most people would have a crumbling country five seconds after being handed the Vice Presidency. Most people think that governing is easy and can be done by everyone - one of the bigger lies of democracy. Most people, also, are foolish. Connect the dots.)
Anyway, now imagine that Bryan wants to comment on our weblogs and he can't. Perhaps he wants to say something in this comments section.
Whatever, anyway. So, we had the opportunity to honour a fallen blogger, and we didn't do it. Since we will all die some time, there are many more chances to correct this grave mistake.
And when you die, I hope it won't be before your parents. That grief has no comparison, and Heaven forfend that we should ever—under any pretext—make light of it.
Anyway, when you die, remember that I'll at least pay you respects as a fallen blogger, one of us. Even as the rest of them go bananas. :o) (Remember that both you and I make many suicide attempts—willingly place ourselves in escapable positions where the probability of dying in the next ten minutes is very high—every time we sit on a boda-boda. This is before the boda-boda starts to move at all. You and I are closer to death, in fact, than he was. As the frogs say, La vie est courte.)